MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev sees it as fundamentally wrong to call all residents of Ukraine Ukrainians or separate the peoples of Russia and Ukraine.
"To assume that the people living in Russia and Ukraine are fundamentally different, and to call all residents of Ukraine Ukrainians - is a grave error," he said in his article "On national identity and political choice: the experience of Russia and China."
He pointed out that the very word "Ukrainians" (as in people living in "okraina," the outskirts - TASS) did not take on its modern ethnic meaning until the mid-19th century, and previously served more as a geographical marker, indicating a person’s place of origin or residence.
"The explanation is rather simple: there were no independent national entities on the territory of the modern Ukraine, neither during the establishment of the modern national state system after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, nor in the 19th century, when new and independent countries like Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany and Bulgaria emerged in Europe. It is pointless to view the genesis of Ukraine through the classical understanding of a ‘nation state’," Medvedev said.
According to the official, Ukraine’s history is inseparable from the events that transpired at various times on its territories, which belonged to different countries at different points in time.
"Likewise, it is more accurate to think in terms of 'okrania Russians — Russians,' and not use the 'Ukrainian — Russian cultural dichotomy’," the politician believes.
He criticized Western "experts" and their supporters in various Ukrainian NGOs, whom he accused of distorting historical truth. "These individuals, funded by the likes of Soros, cannot prevail over historical facts. Yet they persistently implant a set of cliched ideas into public consciousness, steering the narrative off course," he remarked.
He underscored that "in the entire 300 years that it was part of the Russian State, Malorussia (Ukraine) has been neither a colony nor an enslaved nation."
"Were the Malorussians a discriminated group during the Russian Empire era? Certainly not. The people of Malorussia were recognized as an inseparable part of the titular nation, the Russian people. The degree of their integration into the general imperial reality was quite significant. From a legal standpoint, their position and status in the political, cultural and religious sense were just as great as that of the Velikorossiyans," the politician said, providing a number of officials, military commanders, artists and scientists as an example.
"It was completely normal to identify various alien ethnic groups (given the times) that lived in the Russian empire and had a noticeable national identity compared to the titular nation as Russian Germans, Russian Poles, Russian Swedes, Russian Jews or Russian Georgians. Meanwhile, the phrase "Russian Ukrainians" objectively sounds like total nonsense," Medvedev concluded.